It has been a few weeks now, of feeling different. On track, in the thick of sweetness. Weâ€™re playing again, laughing, dreaming, taking care of ourselves. It wasnâ€™t until your comments from this post that I realized maybe, really, the winter was affecting us. And since then, the longer days and weeks with occasional clouds, rather than occasional sun, have given us enough fabric to stitch together joy.

In March, our dirt road turns to mud, and driving, you get pulled in, the metal hulk of your vehicle swerving this way and that as you navigate each sticky groove, the ground pliant with snowmelt. Before March, it was our discord that was like this. The groves so traveled between us, we were not sure how to navigate beyond them. But then, gradually, we gave each other space, and the possibility of a new track, and now weâ€™re here, knee to knee throwing bowls, or making love, or simply offering generosity of intention to every moment weâ€™re with each other.

In our eighth year together, this seasonal quality to love is something that Iâ€™m starting to see and comprehend, viscerally. Now with longer days and sap rising in the maples, Iâ€™m ready to go buy yellow rubber boots and plan a garden. Patience is a gradual lesson. I learn it slowly as new greening of spring rises up, and my heart beats quick at the sight of him again, differently, anew.